Radiative potential and calculations of QED radiative corrections to energy levels and electromagnetic amplitudes in many-electron atoms

Journal Article · Mon Nov 14 23:00:00 EST 2005 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.72.0· OSTI ID:20786451

Flambaum, V V ^[1]; Ginges, J S. M. ^[1]

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1. School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052 (Australia)

We derive an approximate expression for a ''radiative potential'' which can be used to calculate QED strong Coulomb field radiative corrections to energies and electric dipole (E1) transition amplitudes in many-electron atoms with an accuracy of a few percent. The expectation value of the radiative potential gives radiative corrections to the energies. Radiative corrections to E1 amplitudes can be expressed in terms of the radiative potential and its energy derivative (the low-energy theorem): the relative magnitude of the radiative potential contribution is {approx}{alpha}{sup 3}Z{sup 2}ln(1/{alpha}{sup 2}Z{sup 2}), while the sum of other QED contributions is {approx}{alpha}{sup 3}(Z{sub i}+1){sup 2}, where Z{sub i} is the ion charge; that is, for neutral atoms (Z{sub i}=0) the radiative potential contribution exceeds other contributions {approx}Z{sup 2} times. The advantage of the radiative potential method is that it is very simple and can be easily incorporated into many-body theory approaches: relativistic Hartree-Fock, configuration interaction, many-body perturbation theory, etc. As an application we have calculated the radiative corrections to the energy levels and E1 amplitudes as well as their contributions (-0.34% and +0.43%, respectively) to the parity nonconserving (PNC) 6s-7s amplitude in neutral cesium (Z=55). Combining these results with the QED correction to the weak matrix elements (-0.41%) we obtain the total QED correction to the PNC 6s-7s amplitude, (-0.32{+-}0.03)%. The cesium weak charge Q{sub W}=-72.66(29){sub exp}(36){sub theor} agrees with the Standard Model value Q{sub W}{sup SM}=-73.19(13), the difference is 0.53(48)

• OSTI ID: 20786451
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 72; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
AMPLITUDES
ATOMS
CESIUM
CONFIGURATION INTERACTION
COULOMB FIELD
E1-TRANSITIONS
ELECTRIC DIPOLES
ELECTRIC MOMENTS
ELECTRONS
ENERGY LEVELS
EXPECTATION VALUE
HARTREE-FOCK METHOD
IONS
LOW-ENERGY THEOREM
MANY-BODY PROBLEM
MATRIX ELEMENTS
PARITY
PERTURBATION THEORY
POTENTIALS
QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS
RADIATIVE CORRECTIONS
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
STANDARD MODEL